


Respectable

by PreludeInZ



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Boston Welfare Riots, F/M, LA Riots, Undercover, directly inspired by an awesome SFM piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:29:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3842314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/PreludeInZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Originally written on tumblr and inspired by <a href="http://1fort-2fort-redfort-blufort.tumblr.com/post/106447614360/jadeylorelle-inspired-by-this-finally-found">this post</a>.</p><p> </p></blockquote>





	Respectable

Scout was pretty sure things were getting serious, because the jobs were getting a lot more difficult. And it was getting to be a lot more than just riding along.

There’d been a tailored suit and a plane ticket in his locker that afternoon. Now they were in Los Angeles and there was a riot on Sunset Strip.

“…d’you get paid more’n me?” he asked, whispering because they were hiding in an alley, waiting for a break in the squads of riot police, marching through the city streets. They both had guns, neither wanted to use them. She’d entrusted him with a briefcase, not like the ones from work. Sleek, black leather. Important. Nerve-wracking.

She was peering around the corner, her posture tense, alert. They had broken into some apparently random (as far as he could tell) office building, they had scaled an elevator shaft, they had defeated a network of security cameras and left two night watchmen in a dumpster, and the fact that her hair had started to escape from her usual no-nonsense bun was his favourite part of the evening so far. “No, I make about fifty-grand a—”

“Oh my god, please say ‘mission’. Please do not say ‘year’. I am gonna have to go on strike if you say ‘year’, because this job is friggin’  _stupid_ hard, an’ that ain’t  _fair,_ Miss Pauling.”

"Well, I’m very well-paid, for a secretary.”

Scout reached over and took her hand, which was the sort of gesture it had taken him a surprisingly long time to work up the nerve for. Things were getting serious. He wasn’t great at serious. Serious was the sort of thing he tended to screw up. “God, but you’re just such a helluva lot more than a secretary, Miss Pauling.

Miss Pauling didn’t say anything, but she looked back over her shoulder and grinned. Squeezed his fingers. Returned to peering around the corner. Bit her lip and tucked a long strand of dark hair behind her ear. Oh man. Oh God. “Well. We’re probably just going to have to chance it.”

As a general rule, Scout wasn’t overly fond of cops. Shortly before he’d left home, his mother had gathered all eight of her sons in the living room of the apartment that most of them had moved out of. There were mothers rioting in Boston, something about welfare and she wanted all eight of her boys along for protection. It had been Scout’s first and last riot, and he still had a long scar down the side of his rib cage, sliced open scrambling through a broken window. He wasn’t sure what this riot was about. Miss Pauling had muttered some very foul language under her breath regarding hippies, but he’d pretended not to hear, because it ran very contrary to his idea that she was dainty and ladylike, and also was ridiculously sexy. “Ain’t like we’ve done anything.”

She laughed, softly, and drew back from the corner. Pushed up on her toes and fondly patted him on the cheek. “We’ve got a briefcase full of _very stolen_ , very  _classified_ documents. It’s not like we’ve done  _nothing_. Ugh. I have the worst timing, sometimes.” She dropped her voice again, breathed something uncharitable about long-haired, dirty beatniks.

Scout interrupted. “Well, we ain’t done nothin’ like what they’re out for, though. Me’n you, we look  _respectable,_  even. C’mon, just a pair of workin’ stiffs, headin’ home after a late night at the office. We’ll be okay.” And then, sincerely. “No way I’d let anything happen to you, anyway. Right?”

“There are like a dozen cops out there. The riots are about broken curfews. I’d rather nothing happened to  _you_  either.” Miss Pauling paused, looked him up and down. She chewed her lower lip in that way that was more dangerous than anything else he’d seen her do, and one time he’d seen her garrote a man with a jumper cable. “Loosen your tie.”

This was a lot more difficult to do while she was unbuttoning the top few buttons of her shirt, and stepping out of her shoes. She retrieved a tube of lipstick, applied it deftly, pressing her lips together.  And then sliding her nylons off, tiny sparks of static just visible in the dark. These were crammed, visibly, in Scout’s lapel pocket. She slipped her shoes back on, and reached up to ruffle his hair. Miss Pauling tugged her hair free from the pins and elastics that held it together, bent over, and ran her hands through it, teasing her fingers through it, up from the roots. When she straightened and tossed her head so her dark hair settled on her shoulders. Oh shit, oh wow, oh holy  _God_. She narrowed her eyes, critically, and then undid the top two buttons of his shirt with a deft flick of her fingers. “Too much?”

Entirely too much,  _way_ too much, oh God. Shit and fuck and hell and damn and  _Christ_ , and Spy had told him in no uncertain terms it was still too early to ask her to marry him. “Mmm.” That was non-committal. It was also currently all he was capable of saying.

"Probably a little too much,” she agreed, or thought she did. Her fingers lingered lightly on the second button, teasing it in and out of the buttonhole. “Well. The devil’s in the details, though.” She grinned again, wicked and kissed him on the collarbone. He felt more than he saw the shimmering print of her lips. “We’re having a secret workplace affair,” she explained, conspiratorially, tapping the side of her nose. “We’d get fired if anyone found out.”

“I quit. Marry me.”

Whoops. It had been the only thing he was capable of saying.

Miss Pauling only laughed and took him by the hand, peeking out into the street. Then she pulled him along after her, practically skipping into the bright glare of the street lights. Scout had never been great at serious, but that was okay, because she wasn’t being sneaky. She was giggling, unconcerned by the attention she’d drawn. She was enrapturing. Further down the street, the sound of protesters could be heard, some distant speaker system blaring music. She let his hand go and ran a few steps ahead, spinning so the hem of her skirt curled around her hips, then around her knees with a flourish. She looked up, smiling, still walking backward and then stumbled and went sprawling into the middle of the street with a yelp.

Scout dropped the briefcase and was on his knees next to her almost before she’d even hit the ground. Two of the cops had broken off from the loose line further down the street, to see what was going on. Scout barely noticed. “Oh my god, are you okay? Miss Pauling?”

“Fine,” she murmured, flashing the barest hint of a smile. “Play along.”

 _Right_. She’d lifted a hand to his shoulder, but it drifted upward to catch his jaw and oh, the hell with it, fuck the police, because he had a hand on her waist and his fingers in her hair and she was halfway sitting up already, and kissing him back. And she smelled  _amazing_  and some faint sweetness of her lips and her tongue and oh no. Oh no, they were going to be arrested. Oh, and he really didn’t care, not at all. It seemed like they’d fallen out of time, but he was suddenly aware of something nudging his shoulder, once, twice. A brusque “ _ahem._ ”  It was really difficult not to snag the billy club the third time, and cram it up the policeman attached to it.

“You folks need some help?”

She pulled away, a little breathless, and whole world was her bright green eyes, staring at him, barely suppressing a smile. She would be giggling again in seconds, he could just tell from the way she felt in his arms. “Uh, no, sir. No, I think we’re real all right, officer. Late night at the office, sir, s’all it was.”

A snort of laughter. “Right. Sure looks like that’s all it was. You folks maybe want to get yourselves a cab, we got a snarly mess of hippies down the street. You look like a pair of hardworking American capitalists. Get yourselves home.” The policeman’s eyes did a quick inventory of the pair of them. “…or wherever it is you’re going.”

Scout had helped Miss Pauling to her feet now, she was brushing off her skirt. “Thank you, officer.” All wide-eyed innocence, except for the devilish smile. “You give those hippies hell, sir.”

“Will do, ma’am. You have a safe night now.”

The other officer approached, held out the leather briefcase that Scout had completely forgotten about. “Your briefcase,” he offered, and Miss Pauling reached out for it instead.

“Thanks. Good night!”

She at least managed to wait until they were out of earshot, trying to flag down a cab back to the airport, before dissolving helplessly into laughter. “Nice touch, with the briefcase,” she commented, wiping tears from her eyes.

“What briefcase?”

Miss Pauling just laughed again, and handing it back, stretched up onto her toes and kissed him. “You’re a good partner. I’d tell you to quit your day job, and come do this full time, but I have to be honest, it pays like shit.”

“You quit. Marry me.”

She took his hand and smiled as a taxi pulled up to the curb beside them. She turned to talk to the driver, left the question hanging, unanswered.

Well. Scout grinned in spite of himself. It wasn’t a no.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written on tumblr and inspired by [this post](http://1fort-2fort-redfort-blufort.tumblr.com/post/106447614360/jadeylorelle-inspired-by-this-finally-found).
> 
>  


End file.
